Employee resignation policy template

This Resignation policy template is ready to be tailored to meet your company’s needs and should be considered a starting point for setting up your employment policies. An employee resignation policy may also be called a voluntary termination policy.

Policy brief & purpose

Our Resignation policy presents guidelines for handling resignations at our company. Voluntary separations happen occasionally, and we want to ensure that our company appropriately handles them and maintains a smoothly-running workplace.

Scope

This policy applies to all of our employees. A “resignation” occurs when an employee voluntarily informs HR or their manager that they will stop working for our company.

What is a voluntary termination?

Job abandonment, which is failure to show up for work for [three] consecutive days without giving any notice, is also considered resignation (or voluntary termination.)

Policy elements

Notice of resignation

Employees may not be obliged to give advance notice before resigning. But, for efficiency’s sake, and to maintain smooth operations of our workplace, we encourage them to announce their intent to resign at least [two weeks] in advance.

For harder-to-fill positions or more high-profile roles, like [VPs, C-suite executives, data scientists], we advise our employees to give at least [a month’s] notice, if possible.

Sometimes, employees’ contracts bind them to give notice. If they don’t give notice, we may not be obliged to pay out remaining paid vacation leave or other benefits, unless local or national law mandates it.

We ask employees to submit a written, signed notice of resignation for record-keeping purposes. We accept verbal resignations, too. If an employee verbally resigns, the employee will receive an acceptance of resignation letter within [two days.] The advance notice period starts from the moment an employee submits an official notice, whether verbal or written. They can inform either their supervisor or HR, although we advise them to inform both.

Payment in lieu of resignation notice

Sometimes, employees who quit may be asked to stop working immediately instead of remaining until the end of the notice period. If this happens, they will receive their payment for the entire notice period.

Expense reimbursement after resignation

If an employee relocates or studies on our company’s expense, they’re bound by their contracts to remain with us for a certain period. If they resign before that period, they may have to reimburse us for part or all of this kind of expenses.

Revoking resignation

Employees may ask our company to revoke their resignation within the time period until they receive confirmation from HR, which is [two days.] Our company will decide whether or not to grant this request on a case-by-case basis. After that period, they can not revoke their resignation. However, we advise against such decisions. If an employee decides to quit, they should make sure their decision is final.

Communicating a resignation

Employees are encouraged to announce their decision to resign to their immediate team members and supervisors as soon as possible. They can announce it to the whole company, if they wish to.

Team leaders may communicate a resignation to their team. HR may have to inform upper management or other employees who are directly influenced by an employee’s resignation.

Forced Resignation

Employees have the right to resign when they want and at their own free will. Forced resignation (or constructive dismissal) must not occur at any time. Specifically, the following actions are prohibited:

We reserve the right to terminate employees when they don’t adhere to our policies or the law, or those who place our company at risk.

Exit interviews

Employees may be more willing to share their opinions on our processes, practices and culture when they’re leaving our company. By collecting those opinions, we can improve our workplaces for our remaining employees.

Recruiters are responsible for arranging exit interviews with employees who recently resigned. These interviews are voluntary and refusal to participate won’t result in any problems for an employee, their access to references or any unemployment benefits they may be entitled to.

Our HR department will organize exit interviews. As a general rule, exit interviews should be brief, thorough and created with intent to improve our company.

Rehire

Employees who left on good terms are eligible for rehiring. They may or may not be considered new employees depending on how much time has passed since they were last employed in our company. If they’re considered new employees, they may not be given benefits related to their length of employment and seniority.

Payment and unused leave

Employees will receive pay for every day (or hour) they worked for our company. The last payment will be made within [a month] from their last day of work or according to legal requirements. Unused paid vacation or sick leave will be also paid by that date.

Procedure

We advise our employees to follow this procedure:

Talk to their managers in person to alert them to the possibility of resigning.

Discuss any issues that may exist that could be resolved.

Hand in a written and signed notice of resignation to their manager and HR department [two weeks] in advance.

Consult with HR to discuss details and outstanding wages and benefits

At the employee’s last day with our company, they must return all company-owned equipment, and delete confidential files and passwords from their personal devices. Our confidentiality and data protection policies cover all employees, even after separation of employment.

Disclaimer: This policy template is meant to provide general guidelines and should be used as a reference. It may not take into account all relevant local, state or federal laws and is not a legal document. Neither the author nor Workable will assume any legal liability that may arise from the use of this policy.